UPDATE – Crash From Pursuit Turns Up Counterfeit Money
On Thursday, (01/21/2021) officers with the Lake County Sheriff’s Department arrested a 26-year-old male from Champaign, Illinois who is believed to have led police from several jurisdictions on a high-speed chase.
Sometime after 10 a.m., the Lake County Sheriff’s Department was advised that officers in Porter County had lost sight of a vehicle they had been pursuing. A Gary Police Department officer assigned to the Lake County Highway Interdiction Unit spotted the vehicle and began to follow it on I-80/94 near the Lake County/Porter County line. The officer called for assistance from other Lake County units. The fleeing car exited the interstate at Broadway in Gary, and the officer lost sight of it in a construction zone just south of I-80/94. The car was spotted for a third time, this time by Gary Police Department officers near Ridge Road and Clark Road. It was traveling at a high rate of speed and disregarding traffic control devices. An officer with the Griffith Police Department deployed stop sticks near East Ridge Road and North Arbogast Street, in Griffith. The vehicle continued to disobey traffic control devices and slammed into as many as three other vehicle, according to Police.
A Lake County Sheriff’s Department officer and his K-9 partner Jax apprehended the driver of the vehicle involved in the pursuit in the 1600 block of N. Jay Street, in Griffith in this shed pictured below. He is in custody at the Lake County Jail pending criminal charges. A preliminary investigation by Lake County Police detectives recovered a bundle of suspected counterfeit U.S. currency at the scene.
The drivers of two vehicles hit by the fleeing vehicle were taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The third driver refused treatment.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Department Traffic Unit is investigating the crashes.
